I Wish You Would
by bluestoplights
Summary: AU / The white mark on her finger where her rings used to be fade within a few weeks. She wishes everything else would fade away just as easily.


**First of all, this is all of Amber's (sentbyfools) fault. She started this with If I Burn, I Burn for You (which you should read like? right now if you haven't). I had no choice but to retaliate. This is her fault. I also have to thank her for betaing this for me.**

 **This is named after I Wish You Would and the lyrics fit, but I swear All Too Well was on repeat when I wrote this? Whoops.**

-/-

Emma has been working at the police station for a year (gotten out of prison and had a kid there two years ago, which is sort of ironic) when David walks into it with a guy she's never seen before - dark haired with a light smattering of facial hair on his jaw.

She tilts her head to the side at the stranger entering their workplace on David's heels. "What, no handcuffs?"

"He's a friend of mine." David says, gesturing to the man beside him who seems to stifle a laugh at her statement.

Emma furrows her brow. "I've never met him."

"He's in the navy, so he's been deployed for months now." her brother shrugs.

Emma squints, looking dubiously between the two of them. "Okay, then."

"Killian Jones," he introduces himself, breezily. She idly notices he has a sort of Irish accent. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He's her brother's age - three years older than her at 21 and fresh from the latest deployment - and she gets it, now. All she can do is roll her eyes at Mary Margaret's latest attempts to set her up.

"Did your wife put you up to this?" Emma raises her eyebrow at David, who puts his hands up defensively.

"I just came back here to grab something from my office." David insists defensively, moving to duck into his office with a muttered, "I wasn't expecting an interrogation from my sister."

Emma only shakes her head, looking up at the man before her whose eyes still haven't left her.

"Listen, I don't know what either of them told you, but unless you're here to report a crime I've got work to do."

Killian just raises an eyebrow. "You're a tough lass, aren't you?"

"The toughest."

He still hasn't left and David is taking his dear sweet time finding whatever he needs to find, so she sighs in exasperation before attempting to make conversation with the guy. Just to be polite.

"I didn't know they let military guys have scruff."

"They don't," he replies quickly, his hand coming up to cup his jaw. "I grow it back when I'm not on duty. As long as I'm not in uniform, they don't seem to mind."

"I guess that applies to the leather, too." she notes, gesturing to his jacket.

He laughs. "I suppose it does, Emma."

"I hope you didn't kill my friend and leave his body in the station," David mutters from across the room, emerging from his office with a hand over his eyes.

"Please, as if I'd leave his body here," Emma retorts with a grin.

Killian grins. "Everything is still intact, Dave."

David lets his hand fall from his face in an exaggerated swoop. "Oh, thank God. I don't think we could handle a destruction of government property charge."

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Emma." Killian tells her with that stupid smile still on his face.

-/-

Mary Margaret swears she didn't set them up in the slightest, David is just genuinely friends with him. Emma remains dubious, but the statement doesn't set off her lie detector.

-/-

Emma is still coping after her last relationship, after Neal and stealing and prison and the two year old she has at the apartment and the apartment she's still having a hell of a time paying off. Emma doesn't need someone else to complicate that, as she's reiterated constantly to Mary Margaret.

But she keeps running into him as if it's some grand act of fate determined to prove her wrong. He even meets Henry, a few times, and her two year old seems to absolutely adore him. Killian does his best to try to make her smile, with exaggerated stories and boisterous laughter, and sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails.

As time goes on, his attempts become more successes than failures.

-/-

"I leave in two weeks." he informs her one day, after they've managed to accidentally meet yet again. This time, it's at a diner she frequents sometimes after work.

They've met there more than once before, usually on Thursdays at nine o'clock at night. She should really stop claiming they meet by accident, by now, but Emma does it anyway.

"Oh" is all she can think of to say.

"I suppose this is the part when I stop being a bloody coward and tell you how I feel, given that."

"Killian," her tone is a warning, one he decides to forgo.

"I care about you, Emma," he blurts out, the both of them still sitting in a booth. "I think we could have something together, if you wanted to. Try as I might, love, I can't get you out of my mind."

"You don't want to be in any sort of relationship with someone like me, trust me," she assures him, quickly.

Emma gets out of the diner in a rush, him following at her heels.

"How about you let me decide what I do and don't want, hm? I've already made my decision. Now all I can ask is that you make yours."

Emma bites her lip for a moment, turning back around to face him. The silence that hangs between the two of them is tangible.

"You leave in two weeks."

"I do."

Emma kisses him with her hands knotted into his lapel and his hands moving to wrap around her waist.

She makes her decision and for those next two weeks meeting isn't such an accident anymore.

-/-

Emma says goodbye to him at the airport. He promises to come back to her and, for the first time in a long time, she believes someone when they say the words to her.

They talk on the phone a lot while he's gone, though.

"You know, I thought I was going to get these flowery, longwided letters from your boat."

"Ship, love, and are you saying you're unsatisfied?"

"Maybe."

Killian sighs, seeming to take a moment rustling around.

Emma laughs. "I didn't mean you had to write me a letter, Jones. I'm kidding."

"Would you prefer a quote? Perhaps - _"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.'"_

"I have no idea where that's from." Emma deadpans. "Plus, that doesn't even make sense in context."

"It's a quote from _Persuasion_ , love, the most romantic thing I could think of. A sailor hung up on a woman, as I remember it."

"You know, I didn't peg you as an Austen fan."

"There are many things you don't yet know about me, Swan. Now, what are you wearing?"

Emma groans in exasperation, biting back a smile he can't see.

-/-

Emma picks him up at the airport and there's a strong possibility he lifts her up and swings her around with all the gusto he can manage. The ban on public display of affection in uniform is the last thing on his mind.

-/-

Killian moves in and it feels natural for him to do so. He dotes on Henry with all he has and greets Emma when she gets home with all the affection in his body.

She realizes she loves him with a pang on one of the first nights after he moves in.

Emma is afraid of informing him of her new discovery, though, sure all it's going to do is break whatever spell they have between them.

There are so many moments that pass where she could tell him, but she doesn't. But, then there's one time she blurts it out.

Emma has never seen him look so goddamn happy as she did that night, when he embraced her and told her he was just waiting for her to say the words, really.

-/-

"Marry me?" Killian asks her one night, curled up in her cramped bed with his nose nuzzled in her shoulder."

Emma can hardly hear him say the words. "What?"

"Will you marry me?" he repeats, sitting up to face her. He produces a box out of his pocket and it's all Emma's eyes can do not to bulge out of her head.

"Killian…"

"You don't have to say yes, of course, but I thought, maybe…"

She's going to say no. Emma's gut instinct is to say no.

But maybe it's the way he's looking at her, all soft and earnest like he'd go to the end of the world and back for her, that makes her say something else instead.

"I love you."

"Is that a yes?" his breath hitches in the back of his throat.

"It's not a no."

-/-

Emma tells him yes a few weeks later and they get married a few months after that. Killian even formally adopts Henry, the son he's come to love as his own.

It's perfect, for the months they have together.

-/-

Emma worries, that first time he's deployed since they've gotten married. She's heard the horror stories of long distance, has a general idea of what it can do to a relationships.

Killian holds her for a little too long at the airport, but she doesn't find it within herself to complain.

"Not a day will go by where I won't think of you," he mutters with a kiss on her forehead.

She shuts her eyes, pressing her forehead against his chin (clean-shaven, thanks to military living). "Good."

 _Of course_ they'll figure everything out. It was stupid of her to think otherwise. What's a little waiting between two people who love each other so much?

Killian gives her one last parting grin before leaving. She stands there long after he's gone.

-/-

And that's how they do things, for a while - two more years, even. He comes back for a few months at a time and she has everything she could ever want. Emma is the happiest she could ever be, in those months, where she can wake up with him beside her and come home to him and Henry every night. Killian takes her out to dinner and Henry to the park and everything works just as it should.

It's the months that he isn't here that aren't working out so great.

They Skype, though, and that helps a little.

"How has your day been?" Killian asks, eyes full of longing as they study her as much as they can - drinking their fill through the blurry webcam. They both look a little paler and their eyes more sunken in on the webcam, but maybe that's the separation talking a little, too.

"Same old, same old," Emma replies with an air of exasperation. The words have a double meaning, by now. "Henry is over at David's place, I think Mary Margaret is in one of those moods where she needs to take care of someone."

"That sounds like her."

"Doesn't it? I think we might have to look out or she'll kidnap him."

"I'd fly back out in a heartbeat to get him back."

"Then I guess I'll have to stage a kidnapping."

The joke falls a little flat and the longing in his eyes only intensifies.

"Emma…" he trails off, unsure of how even to reply.

"I know."

"You know if I could I would be with the both of you right now."

"I just…" she trails off, her eyes still fixed on his through the monitor. "I really miss you."

"I know the feeling," he replies with a sad smile.

-/-

Henry is hospitalized for an ear infection and he isn't here with her. She tells him what happened later that night and his voice indicates just much much of a state of panic he's in at the news and he tells her that he hates being away from everything. Killian tells her how he hates having to leave her and Henry and his family and God - he just wants to be with them right now.

But he still isn't there.

He isn't there when Henry has his first day of school, either, though he does his best to send him words of encouragement over the phone. Killian isn't there when she gets home after a particularly stressful day where she almost got _stabbed_ on some house call. When she video calls him later on, he looks like she's driven him nearly insane with worry.

At least she gets to see him and hear him thousands of miles away.

It's almost enough.

But it's not.

She knows Killian hates this as much as she does, can see the pain in his eyes when they're separated by however many thousand miles and he's missing everything and everyone. Emma sees the relief in his eyes when he gets back home to the both of them, scooping Henry up and noting how fast he's growing in the time that he's gone (he says it in a teasing way, but they both know it's a little deeper than that). His laughter comes a little too easily and his gestures of affection linger a little too long the first few days; Killian's kisses are greedier and his arms snake around her tighter.

They reach an equilibrium after a while, though, when he's home. Killian no longer drinks the two of them in as if he's constantly at risk of losing him. She gets used to the feeling of being lazily kissed awake, Henry gets used to his dad picking him up from school. Then, as soon as they reach a point where they can be happy - he gets the call to leave again.

The goodbyes don't get any easier, even as two more years pass.

Emma hates this. It's his job, she can't begrudge him from doing his job and she'd freak out on him if he did it to her. The difference is her job involves her leaving for a few hours, not a few months at a time.

Then, there's the added risk that one day he could not come back. She's a cop, she knows all about dangerous jobs. There's something a little beyond dangerous about being deployed in a warzone, though.

Emma reads headlines like _"Widow Releases Statement After Her Deceased Husband's Act of Heroism"_ in the paper over and over again as if there's a possibility that if she reads them enough she'll come to some higher plane of realization and be hit with the knowledge that will prevent this from ever happening to her. All it does is make their calls a little more desperate, a little more bittersweet.

They've been married for four years, now, but Emma still can't lose him.

She can't keep doing this to herself but she doesn't know how to even stop it.

Killian comes home after a particularly long deployment as a surprise. He'd sounded so excited over the phone, but refused to tell her what was going on. She should've figured it out before he showed up on her (their - though it seems only have of the time it's really theirs) doorstep.

She launches herself into his arms and he laughs, the sound boisterous and happy and God - she really did miss him.

Killian's arms snare around her greedily as he swears, "I'll never tire of greetings like this, love."

The question was how many more she'd have to give, along with all the goodbyes. Emma just sighs into the embrace, shaking her head to rid herself of the thought. "I'm so happy you're back."

He moves back to look her in the eyes, sweeping his thumb over her soft smile. "Aye, I'm quite pleased to be back. I thought I'd surprise you and the lad."

As if on cue, Henry comes barreling through the door and Killian crouches down to meet his hug just in time. Their seven year old is latched on him as if he never wants to let go of him.

"I missed you, dad." he mutters into his shoulder.

Killian's jaw clenches. "And I, you."

Emma knows he hates this as much as she does.

"You've gotten so tall, already." Killian observes wondrously, still holding Henry tightly. "I feel like you've grown feet since I've seen you last."

"I'm too short," Henry mutters in response.

Killian laughs.

The next few days go by in a blur, with Killian insisting on spending as much time with his family as he can after spending so much time without them. It's easy, almost, falling back into old rhythms. For a few days, she's able to - for the most part - forget about her worries for the future and _missing him_ and just be able to live in the here and now.

If there's anything she's learned by now, though, it's that sometimes good things aren't meant to last.

"Emma, I have to tell you something," he whispers the words carefully one night, her head pillowed on his chest and his fingers brushing lazily through her hair.

"Good news or bad news?"

"Not good." he admits with a sigh.

She stiffens.

"Nothing we haven't been faced with before, but…" she can feel him tense under her. "This visit was a surprise because it wasn't scheduled. They want me to come back next week."

Emma should say that she understands, that she knows what she signed up for, that they can handle this like they have so many times before.

"Henry's birthday is in two weeks." she observes instead, staring at the opposite wall and wishing she could just crawl out of his arms.

"I know." he says stiffly. "I've been trying to get them to let me extend it, but-"

The words _Widow Releases Statement_ flash in her mind and she just can't. Emma can't lose him. She can't do the missed birthdays. Emma can't do the sad phone calls. She can't come home to an empty bed

Emma has always been the all or nothing type of person. No matter how much she tries, she can't change that about herself.

"I can't do this anymore," she blurts out, squeezing her eyes shut the moment she says the words.

Killian's breathing hitches and his hand stills in her hair. "Do what?"

Any of it, she thinks. She can't be with him, relishing in every second they have together when she has a countdown clock in her mind of when they won't be. She can't be without him,

But maybe it'd be better to be without him. For both of them. Emma hates the realization and hates it even more when she realizes it's right.

"I can't spend all my time wondering if you'll come home," she says with all the clarity she can manage when the tears are lodging to the back of her throat. "I can't be with someone without being with them."

Killian sits up at this, looking her in the eyes with all the sincerity he can offer her. She sits up in his lap. "Emma, what are you saying?"

"I can't make you choose between me and your job. I can't ask that of you. I know that," Emma says, the words coming out choppy. She's almost relieved to get the words that have been rattling around her mind out. "So. I'm not going to make you choose."

"Emma," he pleads, begging with her. "I'd choose you. A million times, I'd choose you and the life we have together. I'd choose you and Henry and-"

"But you can't," she reminds him, voice breaking on the last word and looking anywhere but at the expression on his face. The expression that says _don't leave_ him when she knows she has to (he's left her long before then, with or without his permission). "It's a part of you, Killian. I can't ask you to give up on that."

"So you're asking me to give up on you?"

Emma's tears decide they've won the fight between her and her force of will, rolling down her face in an act of protest. He sweeps them away immediately, moving to cup her face gently in his hands. "It's too hard, Killian. It's just too fucking hard."

His expression hardens. "And you give up when the going gets tough, don't you?"

Killian regrets the words as soon as they're out of his mouth, when she rocks back out of his embrace. "I'm sorry, love, that wasn't fair."

"No, it was," she says, standing in front of the bed with her arms crossed over her body protectively and her eyes flitting around the room as if she's a caged animal looking for an escape route. "You're right."

"I'm sorry," he repeats again, matching her body language - he's the trainer now, all cautious with small steps as if the slow-motion will protect either one of them from her jagged edges. "I'm sorry."

Emma collapses into his arms and he clings to her like he has so many times before - as if he's never planning on letting her go.

Killian never plans on it, but he always does.

"You were right," she repeats, trying to ignore the wetness that's quickly growing on a patch on the shoulder of his button-up. The tears seem to blend seamlessly in with a mascara stain. "That's why I have to let you go."

"I can't make you stay with me if you don't want to," Killian replies, his words breaking up almost as much as hers are. "I just wish you would."

Emma pauses for a moment. "I wish I could."

"I love you, Emma," Killian murmurs brokenly into her hair, raking his right hand through it with his arms still firmly wrapped tight around her. "I'll always love you."

"I know." Emma sniffles. "I love you, too. I love you too much and that's why I can't keep doing this."

Killian shakes his head and she can feel his forehead move down to rest against her shoulder, his words coming out in a rasp. "I don't know if I can let you go."

"You already did."

-/-

Emma takes her rings off when they sign the papers. Killian doesn't.

He leaves for deployment right on schedule.

She ends up putting the rings on a chain, tucked under her shirts at all times.

The white mark on her finger where her rings used to be fade within a few weeks. She wishes everything else would fade away just as easily.

-/-

Their phone conversations from there on out are short and brief, usually ending with her passing the phone to her son. Killian tries to get her to talk, to _"please, just open up to me, love"_ but she only offers him one word answers.

Emma knows she isn't being fair, only hurting him further. She knows that if she gave into him they'd be right back where they started. She can't afford that.

Killian still comes back to her and Henry, though. He's still Henry's dad (she would never contest that, as she emphasized when she signed the papers and he breathed a sigh of relief) legally and emotionally. He gets his own place on base, where Henry spends most of his time when his dad is back in town. Henry is seven and Killian is gone however many months out of the year, so it's not like she can blame the kid. Killian always offers to take her out with them whenever he takes Henry anywhere, though. She always replies with a polite but resolute no thank you.

Emma gets enough reminders of the past, as it is. It's easier to pretend that there isn't much different when he's thousands of miles away, but it's harder when she knows he's here and she could be with him but won't. It doesn't get any easier.

-/-

Killian drops Henry off at Emma's like any other day, except today would have been their anniversary, but she doesn't say that. Emma doesn't need to, as it turns out.

"I suppose," he scratches behind his ear, showing the nervousness he's trying so hard not to project. They're almost strangers, now. It doesn't feel right, but she guesses this is what she signed up for. "I should give you this."

Killian hands over a package, neatly wrapped (like always, as she can attest to from four Christmases together. Henry always destroyed the perfect packaging in _seconds_ and - she really shouldn't walk down this road.) and almost shaking in its owner's hands. Emma hesitates before accepting it, sending him a questioning look.

"I bought it before, erm," the divorce, he doesn't say. "I wasn't exactly going to throw it out."

"Right." she replies, biting her lip. Emma tears open the packaging to a reveal a necklace - dainty and understated because of course he knows her taste - resting in a velvet box.

Emma sighs, not really knowing what to say. She could say thank you, she knows, but the words get stuck in her throat. Emma just looks at him with something she hopes isn't longing but knows is - he returns the gesture. Alarm bells in her head go off right on time and she breaks the eye contact quickly.

"I should be going." Killian admits with a duck of his head. "I should...get to the base."

Emma can only nod in response.

Killian is already halfway out the door when she realizes he'd forgotten to take the receipt out of the box that listed the purchase date as a week ago. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Emma could say that she stopped him before he got a foot out of the door, stopped him and insisted they could work things out and kissed him and-

She could say these things, but she's always been a terrible liar. The door clangs shut behind him when he leaves and she pretends she doesn't hear it.

-/-

"Why aren't you and dad together anymore?" Henry asks her on one of the last nights Killian has left home before he leaves again. He'll be spending the night at his dad's after tonight from then until he leaves, but she has him for the night.

Emma hates this question. She has a hard enough time justifying her decision to herself, justifying it to her kid is even harder.

It's not the first time he's asked this, of course, but her answer doesn't change, either.

"Sometimes people just," Emma does her best to say it nonchalantly, but judging by her son's expression, she fails. "drift apart."

"Maybe you should just drift back together, again." he suggests.

Emma sighs. "It's not that easy, kid."

"He misses you."

Emma's breath catches a little, but she's quick to compose herself. "Did he say that?"

"No, but I can tell," he says with all of the certainty of a seven year old. "Just like I can tell you miss him."

"Henry," Emma whines plaintively. "I missed him when we were still together, kid."

Henry lets it go after that night.

Emma has been divorced for two years when the Storybrooke Police Department hires Graham Humbert. David has been itching to have another pair of hands to save them the extra workload, so he was absolutely delighted when his Help Wanted advertisement was met by an employee at the animal shelter. He's nice and honest and she cannot find anything wrong with the man for the life of her and, believe her, she's tried.

She avoids him at all costs, at first. Emma doesn't need another accented, scruffy man with earnest eyes flirting with her (horribly, as it turns out, and if she weren't so defensive she might have found it endearing) after _everything_. If Graham comes into the station, she's walking out of it muttering something about stolen lawn ornaments.

Graham makes her smile more than she has in a long time. He always brings her coffee and bear claws to work, always makes the stupidest puns that have her smiling against her best judgement, always is right behind her whenever she needs someone. It's easy, between them, and maybe she's missed easy.

One particularly long night at the station, David is in his office and the two of them are at their desks. They're talking and laughing as they've been prone to do as of late and Graham looks at her for a moment, as if trying to solve the world's most difficult puzzle.

Then, he kisses her.

It's not a bad kiss, for one that lasts as short as it does.

Emma steps back all the same, gaping at the man in front of her when her lips leave his. "Graham?"

Graham has a similar dazed look on his face. "I'm...sorry. I don't know what came over me. I should just, go. I'm sorry, Emma."

He walks out of the station and all she can do is watch him go without so much as a reply.

-/-

It's been two years and Emma is still stuck waiting for someone who she isn't sure will come back. Even after locking the doors, she's still waiting.

David finds her sitting on a bench outside of the station, biting her lip in deep concentration and considering what the hell that kiss could mean.

"It's a little cold out for meditation, don't you think?"

Emma shakes her head. "It helps me clear my head, I think."

David raises an eyebrow, moving to sit down beside her. "So does talking about it."

She can't talk about this to her brother, the one who is the reason she even met - well, both - subjects of her woes.

Emma doesn't reply, just stares ahead at the neon lights of the shop across the street. She doesn't have anything to say, really.

Which is why her brother's next words are all the more confusing.

"It's okay, you know." David nudges her. "If you wanted to move on, it's okay."

Emma massages a ring that isn't there. Her expression is a little wistful. "Is it?"

"Yeah." David says, firmly meeting her eyes. He wraps an arm around her shoulders. "It's okay to move on."

Emma leans her head on her brother's shoulder and sighs.

If only it were that easy.

Maybe it is.

-/-

It's a Tuesday, when she intervenes in a particularly violent bar fight. The brawlers are currently sitting in lock-up and pondering their alcohol-fueled misdeeds. Emma walks into the station with a few nasty looking cuts on her face, thinking she'll just clean them up before she gets home.

Graham has other plans, if the look on his face when she walks in is any indication. He takes one look at her and goes to get the first aid kit. Emma sits on top of her desk, unsure of what else to do.

It's just the two of them in the station, now. David went home hours ago.

Graham returns with a warm rag, an icepack, and some antiseptic. Emma can't help but draw comparisons - Killian used to do this for her after nights like this, hold ice to her wounds - carefully, as if his touches were anything but feather light he'd hurt her.

Then again, even given his caution he still did. Just not in the way he thought he would.

Emma shakes off the memory as best as she can.

"You don't have to do this, you know."

"I know." His reply is barely above a whisper. "I want to."

She doesn't have a reply for him, just lets him clean her wounds. It's possible he's doing so in more ways than one.

"Those two guys were very upset over both getting dumped in the same night, apparently." Emma observes in an idle attempt to make conversation.

Graham sighs. "I don't know why men let themselves get so drunk when they're heartbroken."

Emma sucks in a breath. "Because it's easy...and safe, I guess. Not feeling anything is an attractive option when what you feel sucks."

Graham wipes the side of the cut of her face with antiseptic and Emma sucks in a sharp breath. "I felt that."

"You did, huh?"

Emma leans in to kiss him and he responds eagerly, in turn. It's almost easy to let herself fall into him.

He's _here_ and he's hers and they work together, in more ways than one.

-/-

Killian comes back from yet another round of deployment a few months later, scooping their nine year old into a welcoming hug the instant she opens the door. Henry is elated to see his dad, which isn't shocking. What's a little shocking is the shy sort of hug Killian gives her when he sees her.

"It's good to see you, Emma." he says into her shoulder. Killian hasn't even tried to hug her since they signed those papers, but it seems something has changed for him.

Emma stiffens in his embrace. "Yeah, you too."

It takes him a minute to get the point.

"I'm sorry," Killian says, quickly pulling away from her when he notices her discomfort. "I don't know what came over me, it wasn't my intention to-"

"It's fine." Emma states quickly, doing her best to avoid noticing Henry's questioning stare. "We can be friends, right?"

Killian's gaze is redirected to his boots. "Yeah, of course. Friends."

Emma sighs, making her way to the living room before he stops her.

"I have something I wanted to talk to you about," Killian tells her, his gaze still more warm than she probably deserves, all things considered. "I didn't envision it as a conversation to be had over the phone."

Emma crosses her arms, leaning against the doorframe. "Alright. When do you want to talk about it? Now?"

"Perhaps after I drop off Henry," he suggests.

She nods her assent and he must be excited over whatever he has to tell her, if the massive grin on his face is any indication.

"See you then, love."

-/-

Emma meets Killian on her (which was _theirs_ , once) porch later that night. He's pacing back and forth on the wood and it's all she can do not to forcibly stop him herself.

Whatever he's planning on telling her, it obviously has him agitated. Not necessarily agitated in a bad way, just in a way that's clearly making him nervous.

"Hey," she greets.

"I was thinking," he starts immediately, as if he's afraid he won't say the words if he doesn't. "About what you said those years ago. About not forcing me to choose between you and my job."

Emma has no idea where he's going with this. "What about that?"

"I told you I'd choose you and Henry a million times over, you know. I told you I'd give it all up for you and I reckon it's time I do just that. I'm not planning to re-enlist for the Navy, love."

Emma stands shock-still for a minute, hardly believing the words.

Killian continues, a smile growing on his face. "We wouldn't have to be apart anymore, Emma. There wouldn't be those thousands of miles between us every few months."

This is all she could've wanted a few years ago, but now he's too late.

"I'm seeing someone," Emma tells him with a sigh.

Killian freezes. "Oh."

"Yeah."

-/-

He tells her later that he couldn't have gotten out of the next deployment if he tried, anyway.

(And Killian had tried, for Henry's sake if nothing else.)

Even if she did have a different answer for him, she'd still lose him. It's fitting, in a way.

-/-

"My ex-husband leaves town tonight," Emma tells Graham at the station. Their relationship is new and different, but she's sure he's noticed how distant she's been lately.

Emma hates that she's this way, especially as she's fiddling with the rings on the chain on her neck.

"You still have feelings for him," Graham observes. It's not said angrily, or even accusingly. It's as if he's commenting on the color of the sky or the shape of a stop sign. "Your ex-husband."

"I'm sorry, Graham," she tells him and she _means_ it. Emma wishes she didn't. She really didn't want to break his heart or hurt him and she's sure that she never should've gotten involved with him in the first place because she was an _idiot_ for thinking she could move on.

"It's alright, Emma." he tells her with a soft hug that she can't help but melt into. "I understand."

It's the most amicable break-up she's ever had.

-/-

They're still friends, after that. It's almost like when they were in a relationship, they still share smiles and jokes and it's just as easy (easier) to be his friend as it is his something else. Graham is nothing but a kind, good-natured guy and she's lucky to have him in her life.

That is, until she isn't.

It's a few months after she becomes his best friend rather than his girlfriend that she finds his body on the floor of the station she spent so much time with him in.

"Oh my god." Emma blurts out, immediately rushing to meet Graham on the floor. "Graham? Graham?"

She shakes him and God - he isn't breathing. He isn't breathing and his eyes won't open. "Graham, please, come on. Please wake up, Graham, I'm getting help. I swear I'm getting help. Graham, please. Wake up, please."

No response.

Emma's still pleading with him when she dials 911.

-/-

They tell her it was a brain aneurysm, sudden and quick and painless. They let her say goodbye, one last time.

And just like that, Graham is here and Graham is gone.

-/-

"Hey," Emma greets, voice a little rough when she picks up the phone a few days afterwards.

"Hello, love," he still uses the pet name, even two years later. Emma does her best not to cringe. It was just force of habit, that's all. "I just called to check in."

"Listen, can we talk later?" Emma replies, hating how she can't even manage to hold herself together enough for so much as a phone conversation with her ex-husband. "Now is really not a good time."

"Of course," Killian replies quickly, softly. "I understand completely."

Emma squeezes her eyes shut, her grip on her phone tightening. "You know."

"David, he - I heard," Killian hesitates as if he's about to reconsider what he plans to say. "I heard about Graham. I'm so, so sorry, Emma. I can't imagine what you must be going through right now."

Emma is both thankful and disappointed that he isn't here to see her cry. Killian used to wipe her tears away, and now… well, he wasn't here to do that much of the time when they were together, anyway.

"Yeah" is the only thing she can think of to say, her voice breaking the word.

He's silent for a moment and the only sound on the other end of the phone is static. Killian's voice is pleading when he talks again. "Is there anything I can do?"

Not for the first time, she wishes he were here to just hold her. The word no is at the tip of her tongue, just like when he proposed. And just like when he proposed, she doesn't say it. "Just tell me a story."

He complies easily, regaling her with any stupid story he can think of - ones she's sure have to be made up - involving Liam or Will's misadventures. Killian stays on the phone with her for hours, though it has to be fading into the early morning hours of the day wherever he is.

She laughs for the first time since that night, in spite of herself. Maybe a part of her is just glad to hear his voice.

-/-

Emma doesn't know if she'll ever be over what happened with Graham, not really. She spent years with Killian afraid of losing him and hating when he left her for months and fearing when he'd leave her permanently. She wasn't supposed to lose Graham. Graham was supposed to be safe and easy and Graham was supposed to be the one who was there with her - _always_. Even if he was just her friend, he was supposed to stick around.

But now he's gone and Killian is half-here and half-not, almost in a state of constant limbo.

-/-

Emma is on the phone with Killian again a few months later, balancing her phone in one hand and a canteen on coffee in another. They've taken up this nightly tradition, as of late, for these phone conversations. It's similar to the one they had when they were married, but she doesn't dare say the words.

Still, it's nice just to have someone to talk to. As a friend, of course.

"How have you been?" she asks, doing her best to multitask and stake out the house in front of her and carry on a conversation with her ex-husband at the same time. "Keeping busy over there."

Killian laughs a little nervously. "You first, Swan."

Emma sighs dramatically into the phone. "I'm currently waiting behind Storybrooke's one and only stripper bar to catch the world's worst drug dealer. What are you up to?"

"Not much." he replies quickly.

She rolls her eyes. "You know, I'm still able to tell when you're lying over the phone."

Killian chuckles. "Trust me, I've figured that out. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget when-"

"You told me you definitely didn't have anything planned for my birthday and I got to work with an entire florist shop on my desk?" she finishes the story easily and she can almost hear him grin on the other end.

A beat of comfortable silence passes, the both of them seeming to get lost in the past.

"Actually, I do have something to tell you," he admits carefully. If she could see him, she's willing to gamble he'd be scratching that spot behind his ear.

Emma cocks her head to the side in interest. "Oh? Do tell."

"I may have…" it's as if the words are sawdust that are painfully sticking to the inside of his mouth. "I may have met someone."

Emma grips her phone a little too tightly. She blocks the rest of the world out for a moment, vision going a little blurry at the spot she's supposed to be observing for the night.

"Oh," she says simply, her inflection likely giving away her feelings on the matter. Emma cringes immediately after

"I don't know why I just told you that."

"No, it's…" she breaks off, awkwardly, unsure of what even to say. Is this how he felt when he met Graham? "I'm happy for you. She military too?"

"Aye." he admits. "Her name is Milah, she's in a bit of a similar boat as I am - leaves behind a son when she deploys and all."

Used to leave behind a wife, too. Emma buries the thought. "It must be good to find someone, who, uh, gets it."

"Yeah," he replies a little stiffly.

Emma just knows she should get off the phone as quickly as possible if she wants to remain so much as a shred of dignity. "I should let you go. I think I see my guy now."

He's nowhere in sight, but Killian doesn't know that.

"Oh. Good luck."

"Yeah, you too," she replies before hanging up and nearly cringes at the words.

Emma knows she has no room to be bothered by any of this, but she feels the foreign sting of jealousy all the same.

-/-

They're Skyping and Killian tells her he's broken it off with Milah a few weeks later, something about irreconcilable differences. She asks him why he' just reciting their divorce papers back to her and all her can do is give her a sad sort of smile.

-/-

It's months later that she gets a phone call in the middle of the night.

"Emma?" his voice is panicked in a way that she's never heard it before. "God, _Emma._ "

"What's wrong?" she asks, trying her best to stay calm.

There's no reply for a moment, just his breath rasping on the other side of the line.

 _Please be okay_ is all she can think, squeezing the phone with all the force she can manage without breaking it.

"It's Liam." he manages to get out, voice breaking. "They don't think he's going to make it."

His brother and the best man at their wedding.

Emma feels tears welling in her eyes. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just talk to me. Tell me you're okay, that Henry is okay."

She doesn't get off of the phone with him until hours later, after Liam is officially pronounced dead.

Emma has always wanted him to be where she is, but now she feels like she'd give up anything just to be where he is right now if only just to provide whatever comfort she can.

-/-

Killian comes back to town to bury his brother and she meets him at the door of what used to be their home.

He doesn't say anything, but his eyes are still red and he looks as if he's trying to hunch into himself. She doesn't say anything, either, just wraps her arms around him and holds him as tightly as she can manage.

"It's not fair for me to ask this of you, to drag you into this torture with me." he rasps, burrowing his head further into her shoulder as they rock back and forth. "I can't ask this of you, after everything."

"Killian," Emma protests gently. "Don't be stupid."

That's all that needs saying, really.

She goes to the funeral with him, for the man that was the only family he has (had) left. Killian holds her hand in one hand and Henry's in another.

-/-

"I'm not re-enlisting," he tells her over the phone one day.

It's been a few months since Liam's death and she knows it's been incredibly hard on him. Still, the announcement comes as a surprise.

Emma can't help but think of a conversation they'd had almost a year ago.

 _I told you I'd give it all up for you and I reckon it's time I do just that._

" _Oh_ ," is all she can say.

"Once I'm home, I'm home for good," he continues, voice light and airy as if he's discussing the weather rather than bridging the distance that tore them apart four years ago.

 _Home_. What a word.

-/-

Killian ends up moving back in with them. Apparently retired naval lieutenants didn't quite get the same benefits as their active counterparts - benefits like base housing - but Emma can't say she minds it too much.

At least, temporarily. This is all temporary.

This is what she tells herself when she wakes up in the morning to see him making bacon in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms like she's seen him do a million times before.

She blinks, just to make sure she's hasn't somehow ended up back in the past - when they were married and half happy and half missing each other.

"Morning, love." he greets carefully, turning around just enough to face her as she makes her descent down the stairs.

"Good morning." she returns. "That breakfast?"

"Aye," Killian replies. "That is if Henry decides to get up in time for it."

"It's Saturday, he's allowed to sleep in. Not all of us can be morning people."

"Which reminds me, how are you even awake? Normally I'd have to drag you out of bed and here you are at eight in the morning."

She rolls her eyes. "I smelled food, and-"

Emma sees a glimmer on his left hand and nearly balks.

"Something wrong?" he asks her,

"You still…"

Killian looks confused for a moment, then follows her gaze to the wedding ring that still hasn't left his finger. "Aye. I suppose I never got around to taking it off."

"Milah?" she asks with a raised eyebrow.

He seems to understand what Emma is trying to get at. "I suppose that was part of our irreconcilable differences."

Emma toys with the chain at her neck, bringing the rings out for him to examine. "We were always the sentimental type, I guess."

Killian gapes at the rings for a moment, unsure of what to say.

"Well," she shrugs it off as best as she can. "We're both people who have a habit of clinging onto mementos from the past."

"Right," he manages to get out, gaze going back to the bacon sizzling on the stove. "The past."

And that's all it is - all they are.

-/-

Killian takes a job at the docks, joking idly that he's glad he doesn't have to worry so much about shaving anymore because he fits right in. He's still getting adjusted to life as a civilian, but he's managing.

Henry is happy to be living under the same roof as his dad, again, without having to constantly go back and forth between his parents' homes. It's convenient, to be sure, to have Killian sleeping in a spare bedroom instead of sleeping in a bed a mile away (or thousands of miles away).

Sometimes Emma gets caught up at work and Killian picks him up from school. When Henry has nightmares and Emma wakes up to race to his room after hearing his cries in the room next to hers, Killian is already there with a hand raking through Henry's hair soothingly.

Killian is there to make her laugh, too, after a long day at work when she's stressed beyond belief. He tells her stories, some made up and some not. Sometimes she falls asleep with him on the couch with her head on his shoulder and his hand in her hair, with his voice murmuring the story of the first time they met being the last thing she hears before falling asleep.

Emma is happy to have him back, too, even if she can't really have him.

-/-

Killian informs her he's looking at a few places, after a few months of living in under the same roof as her.

"I can imagine you'd like me out of your hair as soon as possible."

"What gives you that idea?" she asks, genuinely meaning it.

"Well, I don't think you'd like your ex-husband loitering about here forever, you know."

"You're hardly loitering. You're better at the household-y stuff than I am, always have been."

He sighs in exasperation. "That's not what I meant, Swan."

"Then what do you mean?" she challenges, raising an eyebrow.

"I doubt you'd want your ex-husband here if you ever, well, one day you might decide-"

"Decide what?"

"That you want to move on from the past." his jaw clenches.

She raises an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if you decide to be with someone else that you won't want to have your ex-husband in your home." Killian admits, finally.

She doesn't know what to do what that.

(Doesn't know what to do with the fact he's here all the time and this is all she's ever wanted is just to be with him and have what they've had for the past months together and she doesn't want a deadline looming over them like it has so many times before.)

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't what, Emma?"

"If I don't want anyone else."

Killian's forehead furrows and his frown deepens. "Don't say things you don't mean, Swan."

"Who says I don't mean it?"

Emma sees something resembling hope in his eyes and she knows she's wearing a matching expression.

Distance tore them apart. Maybe the lack of it could be what brings them together again.

Killian closes the last few feet between them - the only distance left. His gaze levels with hers when he asks her a simple question. "Would you like to know a secret, love?"

"Absolutely."

Killian gestures to the ring still on his finger. "I never took this off, you know."

"Hardly a secret." Emma scoffs, but her tone is far from harsh. "We talked about that a few days ago."

"Ah, but I didn't tell you why," he informs her with a smile. "I don't suppose you'd like to know that bit, too."

"I always thought that one day we'd find our way back to each other, you know. I told myself I'd keep the ring on as long as I still loved you."

"And you're still wearing it," she observes carefully.

"Aye," he tells her with a slow, measured nod. He delicately lifts the chain of her necklace - she'd put them on her last gift to her and she's sure he recognizes this - dangling it lightly. _And you still wear yours_ is unspoken _._ "Remember that phone conversation we had, love?"

"You're going to have to be more specific."

His face falls, a little. "Fair enough, love. I suppose we've had our share of them over the years, haven't we?"

Emma nods, crossing her arms around herself.

"You said something didn't make sense, then, a quote I told you."

Something clicks. "The half-agony, half-hope one."

"Aye," he nods, sweeping a lock of her hair behind her ear carefully. "I didn't read you the entire quote."

"It's a long book."

"How would you know, you've never read it," he teases, lightly. "How about I finish it for you, now?"

Emma just rolls her eyes. "I don't see how a quote that's a million years old matters right now."

Killian just gives her a sad smile. "Too right, lass."

"Is that all you wanted to tell me?" she asks, noting the way his hand is still lingering around her face.

"Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever," he recites carefully.

Emma's breath hitches. "I don't know what you're trying to say, Killian."

He continues in spite of this. "I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, four years and a half ago."

It's a stupid book quote, he can't mean it. Even if he cups her face with the same hand his ring is still on.

"Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you," he tells her, and God - it's beginning to sound more like _telling_ and less like quoting.

"Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me back. For you alone, I think and plan."

Emma can't break his gaze no matter how much she wants to. He still loves her and she's beginning to realize she's never stopped.

"Can you not see this?" he finishes the words in a whisper.

That's all she needs, leaning forward to kiss him for the first time in four years. It's hungry and desperate and Emma has missed every second of it.

"Does it fit the context, now?" he asks once they've separated, voice low.

"You might have to kiss me again, just to be sure."

-/-

Emma moves the rings back to her hand. They don't go through the whole process of a wedding again, just settle it at the courthouse.


End file.
